'I knew I was doomed,' says 1 worker who was laid off

Jun. 12, 2013

Written by

John W. Barry

Poughkeepsie Journal

The troubled economy finally caught up with them. They have lost their jobs. Their future is uncertain.

They worked for one of the most well-known companies in the world, a global brand that remains the second-largest employer in Dutchess County.

Now they are among 697 who had worked for IBM in Dutchess — and an unknown number who worked for the company nationally — given 90 days’ notice that their jobs would be eliminated.

The Journal heard from several IBMers Wednesday who said they were part of the company’s massive “resource action,” the term it uses for workforce reduction.

They requested anonymity.

One man, who has worked at several IBM sites, including in Dutchess, knew months ago that bad news was inevitable.

“I knew I was doomed last year,” he said, “when they said the matching 401(k) money that IBM usually gives in the bi-weekly paychecks would only be given in December now, to employees who still remained with the company in December. I knew they would take this opportunity to get rid of me before this December.”

A second man who contacted the Journal worked more than 10 years at IBM.

He hopes to land a new position with the company that told him he was no longer needed.

“I guess I’ve got to find a new job,” he said. “Within IBM in Hudson Valley, there’s not very much — mostly jobs as contractors for IBM.”

IBM’s work in the Hudson Valley has had dramatic implications for national security and the race to innovate during the computer age.

In 1941, company founder Thomas J. Watson Sr., needing space for a military subsidiary during World War II, set up shop in a former food-processing plant in Poughkeepsie to make armaments. In 1954, IBM began building its Kingston site, to make air-defense computers for the Air Force.

And in 1956, IBM in Poughkeepsie shipped the first commercially available transistorized computer, the 608.

In 1984, IBM boasted a workforce of 31,300 in its three mid-Hudson plants. But in 1993, fiscal losses and the rapid pace of technological change forced IBM into an era of massive downsizing and the mid-Hudson sites dropped 8,300 employees. In 1995, the Kingston site closed.